


Connected By The Path Of Life!

by Undue_Brush



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:54:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28698012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Undue_Brush/pseuds/Undue_Brush
Summary: Annie Leonhardt is a student from Wall Rose Academy and most of her high school life is uneventful until a new pupil arrives in Annie's sophomore year. At first, she pays no attention towards him, but due to him being seated next to her throughout homeroom, they began to communicate on a classmate level. Nothing more, nothing less. But after a few months of this, the two begin to gravitate toward each other more often and they become an important part of the other's life. Leonhardt has to deal with the boy's annoying sister who was on her case and much drama unfolds among them, such is the trouble of attending Rose Academy!
Relationships: Annie Leonhart/Eren Yeager, Bertolt Hoover/Annie Leonhart, Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein, Sasha Blouse/Connie Springer
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	1. The New Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie goes out to dinner at the Brauns, but a lot more as done than eating good food that night...

“Annie, you need to get dressed, now.”

The petite blonde turned to her mother who was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. With visible rage in her eyes, Annie began to speak. “Fuck’s sake, ma, ever heard of knocking? And no, I’m not getting ready; as you can see, I’m busy,” Annie retorted with a sharp tone. 

“Watch your language young lady. And I can see that you're not busy, you're playing video games.” 

Annie grew impatient; this round could slip away if she didn’t get back in the game shortly. “So what? It’s online, I can’t just pause. Why would I need to dress up anyway?” Annie inquired. Annie’s mother was also starting to get impatient with her daughter. "Mrs Braun invited us over for dinner, and you're going with us." 

‘Fucking Marvelous.’ “Do I have to? I don’t want to have to deal with that little brat they call a child,” Annie explained to her mother.

“Little…?” Mrs Leonhardt was surprised by this remark, but soon regained her train of thoughts. “Gabi is a very respectable young lady, and if you dislike her so much, why do you teach her martial arts?” 

‘Shit; they’re starting to get one over on us. I need to wrap this discussion up now,’ Annie told herself as she glared into the screen of her 20” display.

“Cause Mrs Braun is generous enough to pay me a fuckton of cash to do so? And, Gabbie learns that shit fast.”

“Language. You are coming with us to this dinner whether it suits you or not and I will not have you show up to the Brauns’ house dressed up like this. So get changed; we leave in an hour.”

Annie sighed in defeat as her mother slammed the door shut behind her; she realised there was no sweet-talking her way out of this as her mother was dead serious. Then, she got back to her game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Team DeathMatch, and due to her abundance of skill, her team was winning before she was interrupted. ‘Great. Now we're on the back foot again. Time to break out the big guns.’

She chose her favourite weapon, the Dragunov, and found a sufficient vantage point. A few headshots later, she found herself more relaxed than before. After a gruelling final minute, Annie managed to get the final kill to secure the victory for her team, she then ignored any malicious comments from her opponents and switched off her PS4. 

Then, she found herself glancing around her room wearing a frown in disgust. ‘You barely have anything going on in terms of a social life, so you spend most of you day cooped up in here and yet your room is just shy of being likened to a fucking pigsty.’ Annie never had anyone over. Never. So how her room was in this state was beyond her.

She eventually found herself scrambling through her dresser in search of some suitable attire. Annie didn’t own any girly clothes as most of her daily attire consisted of hoodies and sweatpants; it’s not like she had to impress anyone. That would soon change, though. 

After a few minutes of digging, Annie found a cream coloured dress that had a white lining, topped off with a pink flower bow that her mom had bought for her a few months back. She had completely disregarded it, but now it was going to be put to good use. She decided that she was going to have to do something remotely special in terms of her hair and makeup. 

Annie then made her way to the bathroom where she stripped herself naked before she hopped into the shower and proceeded to cleanse her body with the soothing hot water along with the new soap that had been bought that she enjoyed using.

Once out of the shower, she slipped on her briefs along with her dress as she applied some moisturiser to her soft skin which was something she took pride in. 

She then stood before the mirror contemplating what she was going to do with herself. ‘Might as well get started by combing it out; these tangles are a fucking fire hazard at this point.’ So, she began to comb her hair to detangle it and she did this until her hair was in perfect condition. 

‘Can’t be bothered to do it up, so I should probably just leave it like this. As for makeup? Nah.’ She exited the bathroom looking better than she did before, but still not extravagant. She then went into her room and slapped on some shoes that she used for ballet in P.E. ‘It’s supposed to be ‘Phys Ed’ so why the fuck do we have to do ballet,’ she shrugged off this thought and picked up her phone from the nightstand sandwiched between her dresser and her bed.

After, Annie went downstairs where she could see her mother sprinkling some sugar on a freshly baked pan of apple crumble and her dad was watching something about the Impeachment of President Fritz. Annie had offered to drive, in which her parents politely declined. 

* * *

Annie pushed down on the doorbell and the subsequent chimes followed as a result, she then stepped back down onto the porch, while she waited for someone to open the door. After a few seconds of waiting in the harsh November climate, Annie and her parents were greeted by Gabi along with her older brother, Reiner. 

“Good Evening, Mr. and Mrs. Leonhardt. Annie,” Reiner said.

“Good Evening, Reiner,” Mr. Leonhardt said as he gave Reiner a firm handshake. 

"How's business, Sir?" 

"Golden; if you like, I can show you our investments and we can talk about it in more depth to give you an insight." 

Reiner was visibly interested in Mr. Leonhardt's proposal. "I'll have to take you up on that sometime." 

'Those two are like family ever since I can remember; for whatever reason, they get along so smoothly.' Then, they were let inside and made themselves feel like home as they took off their jackets and shoes. 

Reiner and the somewhat quiet Gabi escorted them into the living room/dining area where the rest of the Braun family were sitting down, waiting for their guests to arrive. Annie analysed the table’s contents such as the food that was laid out across the surface along with refreshments and desserts. She started to drool subconsciously, she only realised this when her mom jabbed her in the side discreetly. 

'Fuck!' Annie cursed mentally. 

Then they all took their respective seats at the table and recited some prayers before they began to tuck in.

Annie headed straight for the San Xian Noodles which Mrs. Braun had generously prepared for her especially; she knew that Annie loved it. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Mr. Braun tried to make some small talk with Annie. "I hear that you're doing very well in Geography and Mathematics, Annie. We could use someone like you on the Air Force, you certainly have the skillset for it." 

"Maybe, I never really thought about taking something like that, but I guess it's an option," Annie explained. 

"Whatever you do end up choosing, it will bring fruition to your household, that I'm sure of," he affirmed. 

"Hope so." 

'If I'm being honest, I'd love to be a YouTuber; easy money doing what I love, gaming. But I may as well forget about that 'cause my parents aren't exactly the youtube-friendly type parents, they still don't think I know what sex is, which is a huge indicator, plus I'm not the type of person to willingly put myself in front of a camera in front of millions worldwide.'

Following this compact but important conversation, the noise levels returned to thorough silence. However, Annie grasped that this was too good to be true; Gabbie had yet to speak, and she understood it was only a matter of time before millions of words spurted out of her. Annie just hoped that she had completed her portions before then so she didn't have to be a victim to the carnage that was due to occur. 

The blonde was approximately two minutes from finishing her food when Reiner brought on the subject of Gabi winning a medal at the California State Muay Thai Competition for her age group, which gave her a reason to speak. Reiner noticed his mistake soon enough, but not on his own accord; Annie had to kick him in the shin before he realised the situation, which was then followed by a stare that pierced his soul. 

"But it's all 'cause Annie's such a good teacher," Gabi explained. 

'Did the 'ungrateful brat' just praise me? No. This must be some kind of misunderstanding.’

Annie thought to herself as her eyes widened.

"T...Thanks, Gabi. You're a fast learner," ' Shit! Why'd I say that? I don't want her to start thinking that we're friends or anything.'

Reiners's eyes widened in shock as Annie just praised his little sister willingly, which was something that seemed impossible before today. 

"Thanks for teaching Gabi, Annie; the training has kept her busy and has helped her stay out of trouble because she has something positive to devote her heart to,” Mrs Braun explained. 

"No problem, Mrs. Braun. I'm just doing my job," Annie informed. 

Reiner, sitting across from Annie, only just noticed that Annie had her hair down for whatever reason. 'I should point it out,' Reiner contemplated while he scratched his chin. 'Nah. She'd probably kill me if I asked. It makes her look better, though.’

After finishing her meal, Annie kindly offered to tend to the dishes. Mrs Braun tried to refuse, but Annie insisted that she could be of help. Eventually, Annie had finished washing up and accepted Reiner’s proposal: he asked her to come up to his room to play some UFC 4 on his Xbox.

Annie stepped into Reiner’s room and it was pretty obvious Reiner did not attempt to conceal his considerable assets given the soft hum of the 60" Flat Screen TV mounted on the wall with his collection of games consoles in the cabinet underneath, which featured pretty much every major console in existence. 

Then, there were all of the MMA memorabilia he had managed to get his hands on over the years. Annie took a seat on Reiner’s couch. 

"Reiner, I know your parents are loaded and all, but surely they don't fund all of this?" Annie queries.

"That's called investing, Annie. I spread the money that I get out over various companies and in return, they turn it into more money."

"Maybe I should get into that." Annie always found herself looking for ways to get her hands on more money, it wasn’t because she was ungrateful or anything, she just felt that things could be better if she took action. Her family wasn’t poor, far from it; they had enough money to sustain themselves, and some, but they were never in a position to buy the latest phones or the best supercars etcetera. 

"Yeah, maybe you should," Reiner asserted while grabbing a controller from the designated section in the cabinet which he tossed to the blonde, which she caught expertly.

After Reiner started up the game for them, they proceeded to play a few rounds for warm-up, in which Annie destroyed him.

"In my defence, I haven't played this for ages," Reiner explained. 

"That's a crap excuse; I don't even own the game and every time I have played it is at your house." 

"Fair enough, but that was only the warmup, this time you're getting crushed." 

"This game is rigged! It's so sexist! You keep landing impossible hits and when I try them, it fails miserably" he exclaimed.

Annie grinned sheepishly, as she began to burst out with laughter. 

"Braun, you're just not cut out to be a good gamer, man. Just give up; you want to have to endure the pain of loss anymore," she explained while she rubbed his shoulder, while barely maintaining her composure. 

Reiner's phone pinged and he checked it for any messages, there was a message from his friend Bertholdt Hoover. 

_Bertholdt: You doing anything?_

_Reiner: I'm getting my ass kicked by Annie at UFC._

_Bertholdt: Lol. Ask your parents if you can go and eat out with me._

_Reiner: I mean, we just ate dinner so, I dunno about that…_

_Bertholdt: Come on, it’ll be fun and we can bring Annie along as well._

_Reiner: Okay… I’ll ask them._

"Who was it?"

"Bertholdt."

"What does he want, exactly?"

"He wants us to go eat out with him," Reiner explained before a long sigh.

"Why the long face?"

"I have a feeling that we could miss out on this opportunity to have some fun; I mean, we already ate, so our parents might not allow it." 

"You never know until you try, right," Annie shrugged.

"True. I may as well ask."

He left his room, leaving Annie on her own where she spent her time playing COD on her friend's PS4, even though he owned the next generation consoles; this way it felt natural to her.

Once Reiner was down he went into the games room where the adults were playing a game of chess against each other in pairs of two, which they seemed to be enjoying, somehow.

He knocked on the open door to grab their attention. They looked over at him and smiled.

"Mom, Dad, Mr and Mrs Leonhardt, would it be... alright if me and Annie could go and visit Bertholdt; he wants to go and eat out with company," Reiner probed. 

The adults considered the young man's proposal before giving their verdict. "You can go. Just make sure to be back by ten; we're leaving then," Mrs Leonhardt declared, which the other parents had no objections towards. 

As he was about to leave he was stopped. "And make sure to keep Annie safe," Mr Braun said.

'Annie is perfectly capable of defending herself, believe me; I've learnt this from personal experience.' "Yes, sir," he responded as he made his way back up the stairs.

Once back to his room, Reiner met Annie in gamer mode; she was in the middle of a heated Team DeathMatch, so he made sure not to disturb her 'cause if he did it wouldn't end well for him. So instead of informing Annie of the good news he crashed onto the bean bag in the corner and shot a text to Bertholdt.

Reiner: My parents said I could go :)

Bertholdt: Good. Should I come to yours or?

Reiner: Nah. I'll pick you up.

Bertholdt: Why tho? It's like a 15-minute walk, I can manage. 

Reiner: Don't worry about it, I'll save you the stress of having to walk in the harsh November climate. 

Bertholdt: If you say so. 

* * *

After a relatively comfortable win, Annie switched off Reiner's PS4 and then Reiner began to speak "Hey Ann-". Next thing he knew, Annie landed a perfectly formed kick on his face, despite wearing a dress. Pure Talent. This caused Reiner to fall on his face. Once realising this was her friend, Annie felt very bad but tried not to show it to maintain maximum aloofness. "Oh, Reiner, didn't realise that was you," she said as she offered a hand in which Reiner humbly accepted as he rose to his feet.

"So... you're not gonna freaking apologise?" Reiner felt he deserved an apology from his perspective - that’s the least Annie could for him. 

"In my defence, you stayed in the corner of the room without saying anything," Annie shrugged. 

“I don't really think kicking me in the face was an appropriate method of dealing with this situation.”

Annie felt the urge to chuckle, but she didn’t, maintaining her rigid persona. 

"Anyhoo, our parents said it'd be alright if we went out with Bert and we’re picking him up.” 

‘As much as I like Bertholdt, I know for a fact that he’s had a crush on me for over two years now and still hasn’t worked up the courage to tell me about it, I mean it doesn’t really bother me too much, but it is kind of a pisstake though.’

“I’m gonna look for my keys real quick.”

“Okay, I’ll be downstairs,” she replied as she left the room. 

Once Annie had left, Reiner scrambled around his room in search of his car keys and after a few minutes of looking, he managed to find them. He made his way down the stairs soon after. Once he had gotten to the bottom floor, he found his friend lingering by the door that led on to the garage, typing something on her phone. Reiner being the nosy guy that he was, asked the blonde who she was messaging.

“Hitch.”

‘Why do I hang out with this girl?’ Annie asked herself as she continued to type. 

Hitch: So, what have you and Reiner been getting up to in his bedroom ; )?

Annie: Why do I continue to have you as my only female friend? Are you even a high schooler?

Hitch: ‘cause I’m worth your time :0 And yes I am a high school student attending Stohess Academy in her sophomore year.

Annie: I don’t know what to do with you anymore.

Hitch: Love you too!

Annie sighed as she put her phone into her yellow purse, just before opening the door to the garage. Reiner followed on soon after as he closed the door behind him. He pressed the button on his key and the signal lights of his Mercedes Benz CLS flashed as a result, signalling the car doors were now unlocked. 

‘That is one lucky mother fucker.’ 

Reiner opened the door on the driver’s side and got in, Annie entered on the front passenger’s seat as she began to buckle up. She then gave her friend a soul-crushing glare that read ‘No stupid music.’ He nodded in submission as he lit up the engine before leaving. 

* * *

Reiner pulled up at Bert’s house and shot his friend a text, informing Bertholdt that they had made their way to his property. 

A few minutes passed by, and then Bert hopped into the back seat of the car “Hey… Annie,” Berthodlt said as a slight blush started to grow. Annie looked back at her ‘admirer’ and said “Hey.”

'I need to marry this girl one day!' 

"Your hair… it looks good," Bertholdt said with a stutter.

"Thanks." 

'I didn't even do anything to it, yet everyone seems to prefer it judging by the glances I've been getting from everyone. I might as well leave it like this,' Annie mentally noted while running her fingers through her silky blonde hair. 

"Okay! Let's get going then," Reiner exclaimed 

Annie rolled her eyes at her over-enthusiastic friend; he was supposed to be a 16-year old high schooler, so surely he wasn't meant to act like a preschooler who was going to their friend’s house for the first time in 2 days. 'Why are all of my friends so weird?' 

"Bertholdt, today is your day, ask her," Reiner hissed as he began to reverse out of the driveway. Annie noticed this but chose to ignore it; nothing would come of this ‘motivational speech’ and everything would stay the same - as always or maybe not?

"So, where'd you guys wanna go?" Reiner asked his two friends. 

"McDonald's," Annie replied. 

"Yeah," Bertholdt agreed. 

"McDonald's it is!" Reiner exclaimed as he took the 4th exit at the roundabout putting him en route to their destination. 

After a few minutes driving down this road, Bert spotted the sign of the restaurant 

"Reiner the entrance is there," Bert explained as he pointed it out to his friend.

Reiner sat there, driving, continually tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to keep his cool, contemplating how he could help his friend to finally make his move on Annie; he wanted Bertholdt to succeed in everything he put his heart into, but if things kept going as they were, the chance of him doing so was rapidly dwindling. Reiner sighed in his frustration. But it wasn’t as if he could say much; he was in the same position as his friend, he kept this endeavour to himself though. 

Berthodlt could feel Reiner’s frustration; he wasn’t saying anything, no stupid music was being played and he seemed angry? He knew that his situation was a sticky one, but he never thought it would’ve gotten to this, where his friends are angered by his unhasty action. 

Annie let out a disdainful sigh. ‘That should be more than enough of a message.’ 

Bertholdt continued to remain silent, not being able to decipher the message that she was trying to send over. 

The blonde gritted her teeth. “Bertholdt, you’re really starting to piss me off now, just… say it,” she hissed.

Reiner immediately shot a questioning glance toward Annie with shock in his eyes before turning back to process this. “Wha… She actually had to spell it out for you, man.” 

“Oh, ok. So it was that bad, huh? I might as well say it now. Annie, I… I-”

“Have confidence,” Reiner said realising that it was now or never.

Bertholdt cleared his throat. ‘You got this, just believe in yourself.’ “Annie, I like you, like a lot and I wanted to know if you feel the same way.” He sighed as he felt ten pounds lighter after getting that off his chest. He had always been notorious for being self-contained, but now he had proved, after two years, that with merely a small shove in the right direction, anything can come to pass. 

“Finally! After two fucking years!” Reiner bellowed with a joyous tone as he entered the McDonalds’ parking lot which was relatively empty due to it being in the last hours of the day.

“So, what do you say?” 

“I...uh. Well, yes?” Annie mumbled before sending a look to Reiner that told him everything that he needed to know. 

His eyes widened in shock understanding the reality of the circumstance, while just managing to keep to himself. ‘So Bertholdt went through all of this struggle, just for Annie’s response to not be genuine, due to her pitying him? This world is indeed a cruel place.’ 

“Okay, in that case, let’s consider this our first date!”

“Yeah,” Annie said. She didn’t grasp why she had told Bertholdt that she felt the same way, because, in truth, she didn’t. This wasn’t because she condemned him, no, not all but it was because she wasn’t emotionally fit to be in a relationship, she didn’t feel like she was worthy as a woman.

“Anyway, we’re here now,” Reiner said, opening up his door as his buddies followed soon after him.

Annie shuffled across the pathway in the numbing cold, struggling to keep warm, and then, she felt something on her shoulder; she looked up to see her 'boyfriend' cuddling her loosely at first, as to not be too invasive while holding her head to his chest. Annie didn’t say anything and went along with it, she felt comfortable in the heat of his grasp. Maybe she could live with this for a while.

Eventually, they reached the end of the path where the automatic doors creaked open as they walked through. Consequently, they were hit by the luscious warmth of the building - nice. 

Annie broke free from Bertholdt's hold as he let her go. 

Reiner caught wind of the fact that they had been involved in some kind of unspoken physical contract that he didn't notice due to him fixating his mind on his phone - as usual. 

"What do you guys wanna eat? I'll go order for you." 

The newly inaugurated 'couple' took a seat at the nearby table sitting opposite each other, staring into the other's eyes. 

"I'll have a chicken wrap," Bertholdt said. 

"I'll just get 10 nuggets and a small oasis," Annie requested. 

"Okay, I'll be back soon," Reiner announced as he walked away from the table. 'I mean, she's a bit of a hypocrite now that I think about it; she's too afraid to let Bertholdt down by telling him the truth, so she's just playing along with the situation. Enjoy yourself while this lasts Bertholdt.' He shook his head in discontentment.

Bertholdt whipped out his phone and began to text someone. 

Bertholdt: Connie. 

Connie: Hey!

Bertholdt: I did it.

Connie: What’d you do? I’m a bit confused ngl :/ 

Bertholdt: I asked Annie to go out with me.

Connie: I KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU, I’M SO PROUD! Anyway, what was her answer? That’s the deciding factor. 

“Annie, you wanna take a selfie?”

She took her eyes off her shoes and looked at Bertholdt with an eyebrow lifted in confusion; why would he suddenly want to take a picture with her. It seemed highly suspicious, but if she didn’t accept his request, the situation could become more difficult for her. “Of course…”

Bertholdt's heartwarming smile faded slightly when he noticed that something was off about Annie tonight, she seemed to be deep in thought for lengthy amounts of time. “Hey, what’s wrong? You seem bothered,” Bertholdt inquired of the blonde who sat opposite him.

‘Shit, what do I tell him? If I lie, I’ll feel bad, but if I tell him the truth, he’s gonna be hurt and he’ll know that I lied to him.’ “I… uh… I’m just hungry, that’s all.” ‘You just had to lie to him, didn’t you? God help me!’ 

“Ok, just checking. Anyway, school starts back up tomorrow; have you done all the necessary shopping?”

Annie nodded in reply. "School is so overrated. I’m going to have to deal with Mrs. Hanji; our old science professor left, so she’s our replacement. I had her in my freshman year,” she explained.

Bertholdt leaned on his shoulder, curious as to why Annie disliked this teacher so much. “What’s so wrong about her?” he asked.

“Let’s just say, she’s very enthusiastic about science.” 

This was an understatement, Mrs. Hanji lived on science and she expected her students to be as invested in the subject, which could sometimes be very infuriating but other than that though, she was a kind teacher; she didn't give out that much homework, was very laid back in terms of classroom procedures, most of her lessons consisted of her waffling on about certain topics and all she expected from her students was to put maximum effort in, despite their grades.

“Oh. That’s understandable. Reiner’s been gone for-”

Right on cue, Reiner came through with their food. “What were you about to say, Bertholdt?” He asked with a smug grin. 

Bertholdt rolled his eyes “Nothing.”

“As I thought,” Reiner said as he placed the trays in front of their respective owners. “So, I’ll like this to be paid back to me by Wednesday latest,” he announced.

Annie and Bertholdt looked at him in shock, but they didn’t dare to say anything because Reiner never said that they wouldn’t be indebted, so it was their mistake and he always bought things for them so it was only fair.

“Fine” the two recited in unison. 

“Hey, guys, according to Historia-” Betholdt was cut off mid-sentence by Reiner. 

“What’d Historia say?” Reiner asked.

Bertholdt sighed in irritation. Just the mention of their class-mate Historia got the Blonde incredibly worked up, Bertholdt had theorised that Reiner had a crush on her, for good reason; she was such a kind soul and she was as cute as a button, but he always denied any allegations towards that.

“Let me finish. Anyway, Historia said that we’re going to have a new student joining our homeroom.”

“That’s good; what if we get a super hot girl!” Reiner proposed.

Annie rolled her eyes. “School is about more than girls, Reiner, especially for a coconut brained guy like you.”

Hey! I actually get C’s and D’s on average! And since when do you care about school?”

“I mean, it means something to me, but I’m not really bothered about getting the best grades possible.” Annie cared, alright; since she was in diapers, her father made it vividly clear that nothing other than perfection was accepted, and when it wasn’t straight A’s, things got rough, very rough. He felt that he had to instil the importance of hard work in his daughter. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind having another friend. What’s your take on this news, Annie?” Bertholdt asked. 

“I don’t really care; just another irrelevant being added to my life,” she said as she gnawed on her chicken nugget. 

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

* * *

Beep! Beep! Beep! Be-!

“Ok! I get the fucking point,” Annie yelled as she vigorously slammed her fist on the alarm clock.

The blonde practically rolled out of her bed and let out a prolonged yawn, then she sprung up onto her feet as she took a look at her alarm clock: 7:30. Her dad must have set it for her because she didn’t remember doing so herself. They had gotten back home at 11 after leaving Reiner’s house and Annie fell asleep at around 2, so she wasn’t in the brightest of spirits. She grabbed a towel from the dryer in the laundry room and went to the bathroom in order to freshen up for the first day back at school where she took a light shower and did her hair.

After that, she ventured into the dark depths of her unorganised dresser and picked out an outfit that consisted of a Call of Duty hoodie, some gray Nike sweatpants and some black sneakers - pretty much the usual. She descended the staircase and headed into the kitchen in search of food. She opened up the fridge - nothing appealing, she groaned in annoyance and mentally cursed her mother for not leaving anything good there. ‘Gonna have to cook something!’ 

She retrieved some eggs and sausages from the fridge before pouring some oil into a pan which she put to heat up. Then, she found the remote and switched it on, and put on the news for white noise while she cooked; the end result being a plate of fried sausages and scrambled eggs. Annie crashed onto her sofa and began to dig into her breakfast without paying much attention to the ongoing news reports. She always wondered why the various journalists and reporters awoke at such an ungodly hour just to yap on for hours on end about the President’s flaws and such. After finishing her food, she made sure to clean her dishes to avoid various lectures from her mother then she watched some anime, before getting up at around Eight o'clock and flashing a text to Reiner. 

Annie: Hey, come pick me up.

Reiner: You're meant to say it like this "Good morning, Reiner, may you please take me to school?"

Annie: See you in ten minutes.

Reiner:: See ya.

Annie dashed up the stairs and grabbed her bright yellow backpack from her room along with her jacket.

Once she had returned downstairs, Reiner had made his way to her house and she had several missed calls from him - impatience at it's finest. She quickly burst out of the door and spotted Reiner parked on the other side of the road, Annie walked across and opened the door for the back seats.

"Hey." Annie greeted.

"Morning, how you feeling, about the whole Bertholdt situation?"

'Shit, I shouldn't have asked her that!'

"It's all good, I decided that I'll just let things play out naturally."

"OK, that's good to hear," Reiner said as he revved up the engine of the car and began the lengthy commute to school.

* * *

**Room C2B**

Beyond this door was where Annie would be spending most of her free time when she wasn't allowed to go and park herself in front of the heating vents outside of the gym or read a book in the library, this was the glory of Homeroom from her perspective. She walked in and ignored the other students before taking a random seat; at the back - as far away from the homeroom supervisor as possible.

Within a few minutes, the bell rang and the supposed supervisor walked in; an average height, middle-aged lady who wore glasses and had silver hair. She had an ominous aura about her.

"Good Morning, class. My name is Mrs Brezenka and I'm a member of the school's finance committee, but this particular year I've been given homeroom off so I decided to help supervise a class. It's very nice to meet you all and I assume most of you know each other from last years homeroom?"

A few murmurs and nods were given in response to this query, the general consensus being that of a yes.

"Before we begin any necessary activities, there are some new students that need to be introduced. Come in!"

The door flung open and an individual with dark brown hair along with emerald-like eyes walked through, and he was being followed by a black-haired girl who was tucked into the red scarf she wore. The pair made their way to the front of the class.

Mrs Brezenka took a seat at her desk "Introduce yourselves," she ordered.

"Ok. My name is Eren Jeager,"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good Morning, Afternoon and Evening depending on where you reside in the world! My name is JJ and I live in the UK, thank you for clicking on this fic and giving me a chance to amaze you, as that is what I intend to accomplish. As always leave your feedback in the comments as well as drop a Kudos; if you would prefer to read this on FanFiction.net, I'll be setting up an account on that platform and you can access it over there once I do so. Chapters will be released every week as I have a lot to tend to such as School Work, My Youtube Channel, Other Fics from different fandoms (Shameless Plugging) etc. So I have a lot on my plate currently and the only reason I got this out when I did was me being able to vibe to the Fifth opening which pulled me through. Hope you enjoy and I'll see you in a week. Shout out to my beta reader as I would never have been able to feel so ensured about the quality of my writing; go check out her tumblr here https://ghirahim.co.vu/


	2. The First Day Is Always The Best

"My name is Eren Jaeger and I've transferred here from Shiganshina High School," the brunette announced.

"Nice to meet you, Eren"

"You too, miss."

"Could you kindly take a seat next to Annie at the back there?" Mrs Brezenka said as she pointed at the blonde.

'Shit. This guy looks like he could be a real handful; you can tell by that look on his face.' Annie was sure that she wouldn't have to sit near anyone in homeroom; she was known as the 'bad girl' in her class after she roughed up upper-classmen at the start of her junior year, which made everyone steer clear of her, but Eren, of course, had no idea about this. "No problem," Eren said as he made his way toward Annie.

"Would you like to introduce yourself, young lady?" The black-haired girl was focused on Eren as he made his way toward Annie and her cold glare pierced through the shorter girl’s soul. Annie tried to keep a low profile as she didn’t want any trouble.

"Ahem."

"Oh, sorry. I’m Mikasa Ackermann and I've transferred here from Shiganshina High School, also."

"Nice to meet you, Mikasa. Would you kindly take a seat next to Jean?” Mrs. Brezenka instructed while pointing to a boy with scruffy brown hair.

“Yes ma’am,” Mikasa said as she shuffled toward the boy who had two-toned hair at the front of the class.

"OK, now that we've introduced our new classmates, I've collected all of your timetables for this semester from administration and I'll need some volunteers to help distribute these across the class. Anyone?" A few people walked to the front and helped pass along the sheets of freshly laminated timetables to their designated recipients.

Reiner, who sat next to Berthodlt and one of his teammates on the basketball team: MVP of last year; Jean Kirstein who sat next to Mikasa who was seated at the end of the row, wanted to see what classes everybody was in so they could make plans to sit with each other.

“Hey Jean,” Reiner called out.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have Mrs Hanji for science with me?” Reiner enquired.

“Yeah, I heard she’s a good one, but apparently she’s very ‘enthusiastic’. Do you have Mr Levi for Mathematics? I lucked out this year cos I don’t.”

“Unfortunately,” Reiner said.

Mr. Levi wasn’t someone you’d expect to be intimidating due to his small stature; he was a measly 5'2", but his aura alone told you that he wasn't to be messed with, and he was also a clean freak, so your stationery had better be in pristine condition throughout the school year as to avoid any lengthy lectures on how you should appreciate your equipment and possibly and hour-long detention.

Then there was Mr Smith, whom everyone called Mr Erwin as he said ‘it had a better ring to it’, who was a History professor; rumours had been circulating around the school that he was a former naval commander; he was always yapping on about how the fallen soldiers of WW1 and 2 devoted their hearts and died valiantly during combat. His teaching methods were highly unorthodox and harsh on his students, but quite efficient in keeping their GPA high.

The worst of the bunch was the food technology teachers: Mr Zacharias and Mrs Ral; for starters, Mr Zacharias always tried to smell your food once you were done with it and he did it in a way that was highly invasive, which put people off their appetites. Mrs Ral was always talking about how you should trust in your cooking partner and how not doing so could cost you grades. All the other teachers were pretty much generic and not that bad.

Eren slumped onto his desk, tired from staying up all night and watching videos on ‘how to make it into the military’ on his phone. He glanced at the blonde girl next to him, who was obviously on her phone; she seemed pretty cute to him. ‘Might as well try and make some friends.’ “Hey.”

The girl switched off her phone and looked at the brunette with an agitated expression. “What?” she groaned.

“The name’s Eren, what’s yours?”

“You disrupted me for this crap?

Eren was taken aback by this; he didn’t really see that kind of response coming “Uhh. I just wanted to introduce-”

“Don’t bother.”

Eren groaned. “I’ll take your word for it.”

RING! RING RING!

“Okay, class. That’ll be all for today, make sure to get to your classes on time, today; I won’t be pleased by any complainants!” Mrs Brezenka announced. Everyone stood up from their seats and started to set off to their lessons. Naturally, Mikasa gravitated to Eren; to make sure he would get to his classes with no troubles. “Eren.”

“Yeah?” The green-eyed boy wasn’t exactly happy to see his adoptive sister. He would always tell her to leave him alone in scenarios such as this one, Eren didn't feel like he deserved to be treated like a preschooler by his younger sibling. “Do you know where you’re headed? Do you need any help getting there? Do you need to go to the bathro-”

“Mikasa, I’m fine. I don’t need you to be checking up on me every two minutes, I’m perfectly capable of making my way to lesson. You just worry about getting yourself to class with no troubles,” Eren explained.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

“Yes, I’m sure, Mikasa. Anyway, what lesson do you have right now?”

The black-haired girl reached into her huge jacket pocket and pulled out her timetable, and began to search for the designated spot for this period. “I have… music with Mrs F Reiss, in Room D4G.”

“Ok then, good luck with that. I have history with Mr Smith, but what I overheard during homeroom suggests that people call him Mr Erwin?”

RING! RING RING!

“That’s the first bell people; five minutes to get to your lessons!” A random voice called out over the chit chat of the students who continued to linger in the hallways.

"Crap! We're gonna be late for class! See you later, Mikasa" Eren exclaimed as he began to dash down the corridor.

Eren barely made it to the class on time as he glanced up at the seating plan that 'Mr Erwin' had set for them. He was sitting at the front next to: Connie Springer; a guy around his height with a shaved head and was sporting a jet black Nike tracksuit.

Eren got seated and prepared himself for the upcoming lesson.

"Hey, my name's Connie, what's yours? I haven't exactly seen you around."

"Oh, I'm Eren. Eren Yeager."

"Cool. Anyway, just get ready; I had Mr Erwin in my junior year and I gotta say, he's a handful. Long story short, you're in for a belter here," Connie explained.

"So I've heard. We're just gonna have to pull through this together."

Mr Erwin stood up from his desk and fired up a PowerPoint on the screen with his Rules and Expectations for this class.

"Good Morning class and my name is Mr Smith for those who don't know me, but I would prefer you to address me as Mr Erwin, and I will be taking your History class for this semester," Mr Erwin explained.

"Up on the screen, I have listed what I expect from my students no matter what activities you are tending to. You can quickly scan through it and preferably write it down, as some of these will be crucial to your learning experience."

Most students began to speedily jot down the list from the board at the front of their books.

Once everyone was done, Erwin decided to start the lesson.

"OK, seeing as this is our first lesson back, let's take a look at something that we haven't really touched upon to refresh our minds,"

Mr Smith went on the next slide.

"OK, our new topic for this semester is the peloponnesian war. Write that down as the title in your exercise books: that's the peloponnesian war, I shouldn't have any spelling mistakes; it's on the board for you. OK. Who knows anything about this particular conflict?"

Silence.

"Anyone?"

A red haired girl at the back shot up her hand "Oh! Oh! Oh! Sir, I know, I know"

"Yes Sasha?"

"I heard that it was triggered by the two Greek tribes competing on who had the best feta cheese!"

Some discreet snickers were taking place across the class.

Sasha began to drool at the thought of nicely done, creamy, feta cheese. Heavenly.

"Of course not! Sasha, go stand outside for a bit while I figure out what to do with you," Erwin ordered as he held a hand to his face in frustration.

"Yes sir…" Sasha said with her head low as she shuffled toward the door.

"OK, does anyone have any sensible additions to Sashas appalling contribution?"

Nothing. Erwin shook his head and decided to explain the conflict himself.

"The peloponnesian war was fought between Athens and Sparta, in which Sparta won. It was actually fought between three phases across mainland Greece. Sasha was correct about the two opposing parties being Greek tribes who were at civil war with each other. It all began with the Archimidian War where Sparta and its allies, with the exception of a few, were almost exclusively land-based powers, able to summon large land armies which were very nearly unbeatable thanks to the legendary Spartan forces. The Spartan strategy during the first war, known as the Archidamian War (431–421 BC) after Sparta's king Archidamus II, was to invade the land surrounding Athens. Said tactics worked well, but didn't have any long term affects on Athens. Any thoughts as to why this may be… Eren? I hope I've said your name correctly?"

Eren didn't expect to be called upon so suddenly and frankly, wasn't listening half the time.

"Oh… uhh…-"

"Athens were able to maintain access to their ports idiot," Connie hissed discreetly so Mr Erwin wouldn't hear.

"Athens were still able to maintain access to their ports despite the invasion?"

"Precisely, Eren we're going to have a good school year, aren't we?"

"Yes sir?"

"You damn idiots! If 5y = 60 over 5, what's Y? This isn't even a hard question; this is just a warmup that we've been on for 15 fricking minutes!"

Mr Levi had been creasing for the last quarter of an hour due to the fact that certain people were yet to turn in their starter question due to difficulties. Annie had finished hers as soon as she got it and was trying to keep to herself, but Bertholdt kept staring at her from across the class, while trying to be discreet, which just wasn't working out for him.

"OK! That's it, I'm explaining it myself now. So, if 5y = 60 over 5, then that means that 5y is 60 divided by 5 which is 12, then you divide that by 5 which gives you 2.4, idiots!"

Levi took a deep sigh in annoyance.

"This guy is such a pain in the ass, man." Reiner said to Annie who he was sitting beside.

"Yeah, what're you gonna get for lunch, Reiner?"

"I don't really know, to be fair."

The next 30 minutes was just Mr Levi creasing even harder than before and this section of the day isn't really worth explaining, so we'll just skip ahead :)

"OK, seeing as I'm feeling nice I'll let you go on time, for once. Good riddance, brats."

Everyone picked up their bags and began to exit the room to get to their next lessons.

**A/N: I know that this chapter was a bit boring in terms of character development and was mostly just a school lesson, but this was needed for proper pacing. Next chapter will be better, I assure you :)**


	3. Recess Brawl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Racism warning. You've been warned friends. Don't tell me in the comments that it's offensive, I informed you.

Geography with Mr Hannes, the definition of relaxation; for starters, Hannes knew the struggles of being an underperforming student, which gave him a better understanding of his students, giving him an edge in terms of his teaching ability. More importantly, he was extremely laid back and spent most of the lessons putting on geographical documentaries based on the topic they were covering at that particular time. But despite all of this, when exam season came round, he was dead serious about revision, and lessons became more strict as he wasn't just a freeloader trying to get some easy cash. He wanted to try and make a difference in the community. A truly godsent teacher. 

Annie sat next to Sasha at the front and used her phone to play COD Mobile; it wasn't as good as the console version, but it fulfilled her needs for the time being as all she wanted was to pass the time. This David Attenborough documentary was starting to bore her. For one, he had a strong British accent which pissed her off for some reason. And he was just blathering on about the struggles of the amazon rainforest, which Annie wasn't particularly keen on listening to. 

Mr Hannes had noticed Annie’s distraction light years ago but chose to ignore it and move on. Sasha had managed to smuggle a packet of Doritos into class despite the almost prison-like 'stop and search' system that teachers had been enforcing in the hallways. But as they say, when there's a will there's a way. 

They were getting deep into the documentary, and for those who were watching it, it was unusually interesting, for a video you’d watch at school. 

Mikasa sat at the back staring into Annie's soul; she didn't like her aura and didn't want her to be a paramount person in Eren's life. They sat together during homeroom, so this would prove to be a difficult task, but from what Mikasa had gathered, nothing was going on which was good. But how long would this last, though? 

Then you had Jean and his buddy Connie goofing off at the back, trying to contain their laughter. Reiner and Historia sat next to one another. She was just beautiful. No other words could explain it. He tried not to stare, but it was failing miserably. Historia was weirded out in some ways, but just chalked it up to him staring at the wall or something like that; that's what he had always said when asked about this. "Reiner, you're staring. Again," the blonde snapped out of his trance. "Uhh… I… um. Just don't mind me." 

She managed a heavenly smile. "OK, you just seemed flustered and I just wanted to see if you were doing OK." 

"Thanks." 'Gotta marry her one day!' 

Annie had lost a round of team deathmatch, against bots. Her teammates were literal bags of shit to her - appalling performances across the board. She shoved her phone back into her hoodie pockets in frustration. Not that much time had gone by before the bell set off signalling recess. 

Eren had just come out of religious studies with Mr Nick - the epitome of bullshit; he was droning on about how the borders of their valiant nation had protected them from the wretched Latin Americans who threatened our existence from the beginning and how said borders should be worshipped as gods. Eren honestly wondered why Nick hadn't been given the sack yet due to his controversial teachings. 

One positive had come out of it, though. He had met a nice guy with blonde hair and was a total geek, which gave Eren opportunities to get higher grades and try to stay out of trouble, so things like that wouldn't happen again. Other than that, he was a good guy to have around. 

'He can stick about while I'm still scouting out the social hierarchy, so I can work my way up to being a cool kid 😎' Eren had agreed to meet up with the guy he had met at the library - sacrifices had to be made to ascend the social ladder. After a somewhat tricky navigation process, Eren managed to locate the library and his friend made it pretty obvious as to where he was in this large room.

"Eren! Over here! I found one of those spiderman comics that you said you lik-!" 

The school librarians made sure to give the blonde-haired boy various lectures on using your 'inside voice' in this facility. 

Eren walked over to him "Armin, you really need to chill out dude."

Armin scratched the back of his head in embarrassment "Sorry. I've just never had anyone to hang out with me during recess." 

'This guy really is a fucking loner, isn't he.' 

"It's alright, just try to contain yourself.”

“Noted. Anywho, I managed to find this masterpiece while digging through the graphic novels section before you got here.” Armin explained as he presented one of the classics of the spider-man universe: The Amazing Spider-Man #1 and it was a first edition copy; you could tell by the numbering at the back, you didn’t come by these things that often. Obviously, you had online issues and the re-published ones, but to come across one of the first, was a true miracle. 

“How’d you-?”

“Don’t ask any questions, just read.” 

* * *

Annie stuffed her backpack forcefully into her locker as it wasn’t needed for the next 25 minutes of recess. Then she found her usual spot, the heating vents outside the gym, and took a seat. Then a tall figure loomed over her, she glanced upward and saw a familiar girl, but she couldn’t lay her finger on it. 

“Hey. You’re Annie Leonhardt, right?”

“Yeah. What is it to you?”

“Stand up, I need to talk with you.”

Seeing as she didn’t have anything else to do, Annie followed on behind her. “If you don’t mind me asking, who are you?"

"Oh. I'm Mikasa, Mikasa Ackerman. I'm in your homeroom." 

"Oh. You were the one glaring me to death back then. What is it that you want from me?" 

Mikasa kept quiet, as usual, as she led Annie into the nearest restroom. With no hesitation, the blonde followed on and when she did so, Mikasa pinned her onto the wall. “Whoa! You need to fucking chill out!” Annie yelled.

Mikasa sighed. “I know your type; at first glance, you appear to be an unnoticeable character, but once people get to know you, you show your true colours. Eren is mine. I will not allow you to seduce him. No one else deserves him, only me. You got that?!”

Annie chuckled. “First and foremost, why the fuck do I care about this bs? Second, how dare you? Lastly, who would willingly be with an idiot like you?" 

By now, a few people began to gather in the bathroom. Annie didn't like this kind of attention. She kicked Mikasa's nose forcefully, causing the taller girl to fall down on her backside. Now free, Annie head locked Mikasa to prevent her from doing anything else. 

The black-haired girl's nose was gushing blood but she wasn't about to go down without a proper fight. She attempted to use her raw strength to break free - nothing, Mikasa improvised and elbowed Annie in the stomach. 

"Shit! Did you just see that Sasha?! Mikasa just elbowed Annie in the gut!" 

She sprung up from the blonde's hold and assumed a kickboxing stance. At this point, even the boys were starting to file in. 

Annie stood up and took up her own stance. 

"Oh shit! This is the fight of the century! Bertholdt, look. Annie's fighting the new girl!" Reiner exclaimed in excitement, but Berthold wasn't as buzzed as his blonde friend. 

Mikasa had taken a blow to her nose causing her to bleed out. Annie was wheezing from the elbow she got. 

"Reiner, I think we should stop them before anything serious happens." 

Annie landed a punch on Mikasa's jaw and in response, Mikasa kicked her in the side.

"You don't break up a girls fight; this is a rare delica-" 

Annie gave Mikasa a punch to her head and blood started to leak out from her scalp. 

The black-haired girl collapsed onto the floor abruptly. 

"Whoa! Annie, what the hell man?" Reiner yelled as he rushed over to the figure slumped up on the floor. 

The door flung open and Historia started cheerily skipping into the bathroom. She stopped in her tracks, scanning the situation in front of her. "Uhh... Um...what's going on here? Why's Reiner here?" 

There were a few moments of silence before it dawned on them once again that Mikasa was bleeding from her head and Annie was struggling to breathe. 

"Historia, go get a teacher. NOW!" Bertholdt yelled as he kneeled down next to Annie who wasn't exactly doing well. 

Moments later, the school nurse came in with a few others and took Mikasa as their first priority, while chewing out the guys for being in the girls’ bathroom and clearing the scene. 

"Annie, talk to me! Are you OK?" Bertholdt asked her. The blonde raised her eyebrows in response. 

"Good, can you stand up?" 

Nothing.

"Guess not then. Anyway, just sit tight for now. But, I hope you realise the trouble you're in right now, you pretty much broke that girl's nose and busted her jaw! I know she started it, but that's beside the point." 

The same group of teachers came in and helped Annie get through to the nearby hospital Everyone had their lesson before having a lunch break, Eren took a seat on an empty table in the canteen. 'I thought Mikasa said she was going to meet me here.'

Reiner passed by the table and it hit Eren that Mikasa had the same History class as him. "Hey, Reiner." 

"Hey. What's up? You're that new kid, right?" 

Eren nodded in response. 

"Do you know where my sister is? Her name's Mikasa." 

"Oh, you're her brother and you don't know." 

"I don't know what?" 

"Her and Annie Leonhardt got into a fight, Mikasa's nose is broken and her jaw busted. And Annie is struggling to breathe. They've both been taken to a hospital nearby for checkups and treatment" 

“Ok, then. Do you know how everything started?”

Reiner took a seat opposite Eren and told the brunette what he knew about the conflict that took place at recess. 

“That sounds like a scene from a freaking movie, and it took place in the girl’s bathroom. And you’re telling me that you saw everything first hand. And I sit next to that terrorist in homeroom.”

Bertholdt spotted Reiner and took a seat next to the blonde with his lunch; vegan burger with carrot sticks. “Bertholdt, you’re still on this vegan diet of yours?” Bertholdt nodded in response. “You need to get some meat on your bones man. I can’t have a friend of mine being an absolute twig.” 

* * *

It was a pretty uneventful lunch break; just some discussion amongst the boys and some sports played outside. Eren had been called into the principal’s office after lunch, for what reason, he didn’t know. 

“The principal is ready to see you Eren.”

The brunette stood up and walked into the room. The principal; he was a man, probably in his 50s or 60s, glasses, grey hair and kitted up with a navy blue suit. 

“Take a seat, Mr. Yeager.”

Eren did as he was instructed. 

“My name is Mr. Zachary and as you should know, I’m the principal of this educational facility. It has come to my attention that your sister has suffered some damage to her nose and her jaw due to an altercation that took place during recess. Eren, this is serious; charges could be pressed by both parties, we don’t want to have to reach that stage. You’re not in any trouble, but I just need you to tell me why you think this incident may have occurred."

"I honestly have no clue, sir. Mikasa isn't exactly the type of person that's labelled as a troublemaker. She's only getting into fights… when it involves myself.”

The old man lifted an eyebrow at this last statement “She only gets into fights when it involves yourself? That leads me to believe you had something to do with this. Eren, be honest with me, what did you do?”

“I'm being completely honest with you, sir. I had no involvement,"

Zachary let out a prolonged sigh of annoyance and started doing something on his computer. He flipped the monitor around so Eren could see."As much as I want to believe you're telling me the truth, this is affecting my judgement." 

Eren glanced at the screen and saw something he didn't want to see, but it was unrealistic of him to expect that it wouldn't be brought up. His behavioural records. “Yeager, this worries me. You’ve come here for a fresh start and on the first day something has come up. All I need from you is to help me with this situation.”

“I want to help out, I’m not sure why this has happened, but I can speak with Mikasa for you.”

Zachary managed a slight smile and escorted Eren out of his office. 

The rest of the school day was pretty uneventful and nothing much was said about the incident that had occurred earlier. Reiner and Bertholdt went home together in the blonde’s car, not speaking much on the way there. Reiner dropped his friend off at his house, before journeying to his own. 

Eren had walked to his house, as it was nearby, he got to his doorstep and put his keys in the door. Once he got in, his mother stood there, arms crossed, feet tapping impatiently and a cold expression on her face. “Hey...mom. How’s your day been?” 

“Guess.”

‘Shit, I should’ve known this would happen. Mikasa!’ 

“Uhhh… not that good.”

She began to pace around the hallway - shit. 

“So, Eren, me and your father went about tirelessly looking for a school that would accept you, because you got yourself into a position where teachers were questioning whether or not you could manage yourself behaviourally and if you were worth keeping. Now, we’ve got you a good school, in a good area, we’ve bought a new house, your brother had to leave his baseball team, etcetera and on the first day your sister has gotten into trouble. Now you're not at fault for this, and I'll be speaking to Mikasa, but as she does for you, you need to be there for her. Now she's going to be in huge trouble at school and she's been roughed up. That's just not good enough," she explained. 

Eren huffed out a sigh. 

"OK, mom. Is Mikasa doing well?" 

"Yes, fortunately, her wounds weren't that deep so they've just had to stitch her up a bit, but she's broken her nose and her jaw bone is broken, so she's having to undergo surgery to sort it out.

* * *

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

_What’s going on?_

_“Doctor, how do we deal with this?”_

_“She’ll have to have some surgery done to repair the fractured jaw bone, It’s a very costly treatment, and frankly, it’s looking like something that’s going to conducted in stages due to the sheer damage that’s there.”_

_“But sir! This girl is the adoptive daughter of Dr. Yeager, an innovative figure in modern medicine.”_

_“That doesn’t mean that they’re going to be treated any differently than the regular patient. I don’t place people of wealth above other patients, and I’m disappointed that you see things like this.”_

_What are they talking about? Why’s everything so blurry? Why can’t I move? Where’s Eren?_

_Where’s mom? Oh, yeah, she’s... not here. Am I dead? Feels like it. Where did everything go wrong?_

_“The world is a cruel place, isn’t it?”_

_What? Who said that?_

_“I said it.”_

_Why can’t I see you?_

_“Maybe you can. I’m what you believe me to be; that voice in your head that helps you when you need advice. As far as you know, I’m probably just a figment of your imagination. What am I to you? You’ll end up forgetting this, but for now, I’m here. So, what am I to you?”_

_Hope._

_“Do you know what my name is?”_

_I thought you said you’re what I choose for you to be?_

_“That’s just what I tell you mortals, my name is Ymir, Ymir Fritz. The founder. what you humans call ‘god’.”_

_God? If you’re god, then why are you wasting your time speaking with me?_

_“Who knows? This might just be a dream of yours, I could be doing whatever. I might not even be real, but that’s for you to decide, right?”_

_I guess so._

_“So speak with me, Mikasa. What is your purpose in the world? Why is it that you’re here? Why did this cycle begin?”_

_I don’t know._

_“It all started with a little girl, who wanted to be free.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying this story so far. Ymir makes an entrance, very interesting plot holes that I'm gonna need to fill as we move on.


	4. Back In My Day: Part 1/3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took my time on this one, admittedly, so hold me accountable. I'll try and keep a consistent release schedule from now onwards. Hope you enjoy this one as I certainly enjoyed writing it.

“The two of you will need to find something that you wanna take on; holding onto past events isn’t good for your school grades, let alone your mental health,” Mrs. Brezenka explained.

“But, I don’t wanna-” Eren tried to chime in. 

“No butts. It’s already been arranged for the both of you, now you just need to tell me what course you want to partake in and I’ll sort it out. We can accept that the pair of you may never become best friends, but we don’t want a bittersweet relationship that could inflict your studies.”

Eren realized there was no way out of this conundrum and scanned the sheet with the list of team-building exercises in search of a viable option; it was filled with an assortment of random things, one that stood out as easy and enjoyable to him. 

“Uhhh… I wouldn’t mind doing web design, it seems interesting enough,” Eren said. 

Mrs. Brezenka dashed a glance toward Annie, who wasn’t paying attention, the blonde just shrugged. 

“Okay, that’s settled. Your computer science teacher will be handing you the program in class later today and to not make you two feel on your own with this, the project will be handed out to others as well and you’ll have an extra joining your group.”

Annie let out a sigh of annoyance as the two left the room and went off for lunch break. 

Eren stepped into the crowded lunch hall and picked up a tray, before joining the queue for food. Coincidentally, he ran into his big friendly giant of a new friend, Bertholdt; despite the recent occurrence involving Mikasa and Annie, Reiner and Bertholdt had managed to get along with Eren. 

“Hey Eren, How’d the meeting go with Annie and Mrs. Brezenka?”

“It wasn’t exactly something I wanted to happen; they’ve set the two of us on some bonding plan where we have to complete a project for computer science.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. 

“Mikasa and Annie are being separated though, so it beats me why I have to go through this bullshit,” Eren explained. 

“That’s understandable, just try and get along with her. I know she doesn’t look it, but once you get to know her, Annie can be a wonderful person.” Bertholdt offered a small smile. 

Eren rolled his eyes in dismissal. The pair picked up their lunch after a few minutes of waiting in the line and they both made their way to the table with all the boys. 

Reiner was speaking to the group, “So I heard that there gonna sack Mr-”

“Hey guys,” Eren interrupted as he and Bertholdt took a seat.

“What happened at the meeting, Eren?” Jean asked the brunette in curiosity. 

Eren explained the arrangements that had been made and his thoughts. 

“Oh, that kinda sucks” Jean grumbled as he took a bite into his food. 

* * *

_Where am I?_

_Mikasa opened her eyes and glared into the vast expanses of… sand? She looked up into the sky; it was beautiful, there was a ray of light kind of like the northern lights in Norway. She wasn't wearing anything, which was a_ **_bit_ ** _weird._

_‘This is the realm of the coordinate, where all space and time intersects, where all beings link with each other. This is what life is. The bundle of light there represents living things and every strand of it is a being, they all come together and connect.’_

_Oh, so is this what started life?_

_‘Not exactly, this is just what life is, and it was started by a little girl named Ymir.’_

_So it started with you?_

_‘No, I’m the founder,_ **_that_ ** _Ymir was a different girl entirely.’_

_Ok then, get on with the story._

_‘We'll keep it for another time; it's time for you to go back to your world, I'll speak with you soon.’_

_See you when I do._

_Ymir smiled as she began to fade away from Mikasa's view. Everything around her began to dissipate as she began to fall back into reality._

* * *

The boys had finished their lunch and set off into the corridors to walk about for the remainder of the break. 

“So, Eren, how’s Mikasa holding up?” Jean asked with a flash of red engulfing his face, that he tried to hide. 

Noticing this, Eren’s gloomy expression turned into a smirk “Why’d you care?”

“No particular reason…”

“Is that so? Anyway, they stitched up her nose and her jaw bone is healing itself so no surgery was needed.”

“I’m glad,” Jean said. 

“Don’t worry Jean, I’ll make sure to let her know that you care about her,” Eren said mischievously causing some slight laughter. 

Jean rolled his eyes to try and hide his embarrassment. 

**“You literal piece of shit** , that’s not how you code a website you fucking whore!” Eren yelled in frustration. 

“What’d you just call me?!” Annie screamed as she sprung up from her chair. 

Armin darted his eyes between the two ‘Why’d I have to be stuck with these weirdos?’ He asked himself.

“Hey! Come on, we all just need to take some deep breaths and try to get some work done before the end of the lesson, then we can go our separate ways,” Armin interjected while standing between the others. 

Annie and Eren cooled their heads, sitting back down. 

“Okay, now that we’ve settled down, we need to look at this project from a bird's eye view; what do we want our website to be?”

“Uhhh...maybe a spider man merchandise store?” Eren suggested. 

“Come on, Eren we need to be serious about this,” Armin explained. 

“But… I am being serious.”

“Well, come up with something viable; I’m not standing in front of the class and presenting a spiderman costume store.” Armin said as he huffed in annoyance “Annie, any ideas?” 

“I don’t know, maybe a… let’s just go with **_his_ **idea since we don't have anything else in contention as much as I don't wanna make a spiderman website,” Annie said as she slumped herself on the desk in boredom. 

Armin sighed “Spider-Man page it is.”

They used the remainder of the lesson to plan the layout of their website and get some ideas down, which didn’t go particularly well for Armin’s sanity, having to deal with Annie and Eren, but they managed to get there in the end. After that, the lesson was over and so was the school day. 

* * *

Annie made a beeline for Reiner’s car as per usual; she didn’t have anyone she needed to converse with, so there was no point in hanging around. She got there and waited a few minutes before Reiner came out.

“Hey, Annie,” Reiner said as he unlocked the car. 

The pair got in and Reiner started up the car, pulling out and leaving the school premises. He reached over to the radio controls, but his attempts were cut off by Annie’s death glare “How was school, Annie?” 

“Shit.”

“That bad? Oh, that computer science project thing?” Reiner questioned. 

“Yeah, I just don’t wanna deal with these kinds of situations.”

“I mean, in fairness to Eren, you’re the one who broke his sister’s nose for no apparent reason and caused for there to be some intervention from the school. If you don’t mind me asking, why’d you and Mikasa get into that situation?”

“Something about me tryna seduce Eren or something, so her solution to this issue of hers, was to trick me into coming into the restroom so she could _discreetly_ deal with me which resulted in me retaliating as I’m entitled to do so.”

Reiner raised a brow in surprise; he could never have anticipated this kind of plotline for a high-school girl's fight. 

“That’s something I never could’ve guessed. But in all seriousness, you need to apologize to her; you don’t know what she's been through or why she acted in the way she did, do you?”

“Am I supposed to converse with someone who’s trying to punch me? Are you going to do that? No, you’re not.” 

“Whether you’re right about that is up for debate,” Reiner said as he gave a questioning glare to Annie. 

“Eyes on the road, idiot. You don’t have to worry about me, I can take care of myself as I’ve always done.”

“I know that you can handle yourself, but sometimes you just go off and do some idiotic things, getting yourself into undesirable situations and all sorts. I’ll always be looking out for you, whether you like it or not,” Reiner explained. 

“I know.”

* * *

“Why am I still here?” Mikasa asked the nurse who sat beside her.

“We’re just being a bit cautious with everything and the doctors are just conducting some necessary tests; you fell quite hard, so we’re taking some precautions to make sure nothing else is wrong.”

“Oh, ok. So when am I going to be able to leave?”

“I heard that your brothers are coming to get you later tonight, if that doesn’t happen, you’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Mikasa said as she tucked herself into her sheets, soon drifting into slumber.

All of a sudden, she fell into a void, leading her back to where she was before - the coordinate, the realm that held all of existence in its grasp, Ymir, the founder sat opposite her with a smile on her face; it was almost as if she was waiting for Mikasa. 

“So Mikasa, you seem to miss them a lot, don’t you?”

Of course, they were… special. I’d do anything to go back to our cozy cabin in the sticks and sit down in dad’s lap on his chair.

“You should deem yourself lucky, I never had a family; I was just a number - 8967. That was my being, my identification, that number was tied to my existence for the entirety of my short life. It was tattooed on my left breast, to make it known I was the inferior one.” Ymir said with a grim expression. 

That sounds horrible, but how did it get to that? You seem like the kind of girl no one would mess with; like you have control over everyone and everything.

Ymir picked up some sand and blew the particles away, forming a tear in the world, something like a portal. She grabbed Mikasa’s sand by surprise and they both went through. Once they’d come out of the… who knows what, they were in a forest with loads of tall trees and the air reeked of smoke, from coal and wood? For whatever reason, Mikasa was clothed now, just some very weird things were taking place. 

“Ymir, where have you taken us?” Mikasa queried.

“The question is that of ‘when’, but don’t worry everything will become apparent very soon, just follow my lead,”

Mikasa was doubting this a bit but decided to listen, Ymir wasn’t an idiot which was something she’d learned over their numerous discussions. 

“Ok then.”

For a few minutes, they trudged through the wet grass and continued to advance through the never-ending forest. Mikasa was starting to become impatient; her body was asleep, but she was in another dimension and she was being dragged across by a girl whose appearance kept changing; at one point she was a little girl and now she was Mikasa’s age, who was claiming to be a god. 

“I know what you're thinking, just be a bit more patient, we’re almost there now it’ll all be worth the wait,” Ymir said.

“If you say so.”

Eventually, there was an exit and beyond the trees, there was a village - a few huts, some animals in pens; the usual medieval village. “This is my village,” Ymir announced with a faint smile and they continued to walk through, no one seemed to notice them. Ymir had taken them to a house and the pair walked in through the front door. There was a woman sitting in a rocking chair in front of a fireplace knitting a scarf. 

“That’s my mother, we lived here peacefully until this day, then **he** came about.” 

"Who's-” Mikasa said as she was interrupted by a sudden bang. 

They walked out of the house and witnessed the ongoing tragedy that was taking place all around them - bombs going off, supposed soldiers grabbing people, fires spreading, it was the personification of hell. 

“On this day the ruler of the Eldian Tribe, King Fritz, invaded my village and enslaved all the survivors of the attack.” Ymir explained as she opened another ‘portal’ gesturing to Mikasa to follow on behind her. The pair stepped into the hole and on the other side, there was a crowd of shackled people who stood in front of a man on a raised platform. 

“So who did it?” Fritz interrogated.

Silence. 

“Fine, we’ll do it like this then; among you who set the pigs free, name yourself. If you don’t, everybody’s getting their eyes gouged out. Slaves don’t need both of them.”

Hearing this, they all pointed at a little girl in the middle. 

“Very well. Unchain her,” He ordered one of his guards. 

They unlocked her shackles. 

“My young slave, Ymir, you are now free,” Fritz announced as he gestured to his guards to follow her. “Whether that freedom lasts long all comes down to how fast you can run,” He said with a smirk on his face. 

Ymir dashed into the forest as the men rode along on horseback as they pierced the little girl with arrows. 

Mikasa and Ymir followed on, witnessing the nauseating scene as it played out, Ymir’s younger self had been running almost subconsciously; the arrows just kept coming endlessly, numbing her body with pain. So she kept on going, not feeling anything, not seeing anything, just running, hoping for a miracle. Not looking, she fell into an open tree trunk.

“This is the best part,” Ymir told Mikasa with a quirky smirk. 

Suddenly, the tree exploded and a giant-like figure spurted out of it, roaring into the open air. 

“What is- How- where-” Mikasa mumbled in confusion.

“That’s a titan. More importantly, that’s me,"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must say, I'm really enjoying writing paths, and now that I look back on it, Isayama had loads of options he didn't utilize when writing this particular arc that he didn't take. If you have any unanswered questions after this trilogy of chapters, list them in the comments and they'll be addressed. Thanks for reading!


End file.
